ITIL 4: The new syllabus
The ITIL® syllabus has been updated to reflect the way business is changing. One of the main elements of ITIL 4 is the idea of value co-creation - this being, value can only be achieved when the end customer is considered in the development of services/ features.
From this, the key components of the ITIL 4 framework are the ITIL service value system (SVS) and the four dimensions model.
The core components of the ITIL SVS are:
- The ITIL service value chain
- The ITIL practices
- The ITIL guiding principles
- Governance
- Continuous improvement
To ensure a holistic approach to service management, there are then four dimensions from which each component of the SVS should be considered:
- Organisation and people
- Information and technology
- Partners and suppliers
- Value streams and processes
Then we have the ITIL practices, which are grouped into three categories as follows:
- General management practices
- Service management practices
- Technical management practices
There are 34 practices* in total - 14 general management practices, 17 service management practices, and three technical management practices:
| General Management Practices | Service management practices | Technical management practices |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture management | Availability management | Deployment management |
| Continual improvement | Business Analysis | Infrastructure and platform management |
| Information security management | Capacity and performance management | Software development and management |
| Knowledge management | Change control | |
| Measurement and reporting | Incident management | |
| Organizational change management | IT asset management | |
| Portfolio management | Monitoring and event management | |
| Project management | Problem management | |
| Relationship management | Release management | |
| Risk management | Service catalogue management | |
| Service financial management | Service configuration management | |
| Strategy management | Service continuity management | |
| Supplier management | Service design | |
| Workforce and talent management | Service desk | |
| Service level management | ||
| Service request management | ||
| Service validation and testing |
The Foundation level examines 15 of these practices - seven of which are examined in greater detail. The 15 examined practices at Foundation level are below. The seven in bold are the ones examined in more detail (9–15):
- Information security management
- Relationship management
- Supplier management
- IT asset management
- Monitoring and event management
- Release management
- Service configuration management
- Deployment management
- Continual improvement
- Change control
- Incident management
- Problem management
- Service request management
- Service desk
- Service level management
The last element of the syllabus is ITIL's guiding principles. A guiding principle is a recommendation that guides an organisation, regardless of circumstance whether that's changing goals, strategies, types of work or management structure.
- Focus on value
- Start where you are
- Progress iteratively with feedback
- Collaborate and promote visibility
- Think and work holistically
- Keep it simple and practical
- Optimise and automate